Toyota: CARPOOL

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Branded Content

Advertiser: TOYOTA

Product/Service: TOYOTA PRIUS

Date of First Appearance: Nov 4 2010

Entrant Company: ZENITHOPTIMEDIA UK, London, UNITED KINGDOM

Entry URL: http://www.joindave.co.uk/carpool

Branded Content Director: Neil Walker (ZenithOptimedia)

Client Planning Director: Matt Skelding (ZenithOptimedia)

Managing Partner: Tim Brady (ZenithOptimedia)

Head of Strategy: David Grainger (ZenithOptimedia)

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 4th November 2010

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 11th November 2010

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 18th November 2010

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 25th November 2010

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 2nd December 2010

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 5th January 2011

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 12th January 2011

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 19th January 2011

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 26th Janaury 2011

Media placement: TV Show - Dave - 2nd February 2011



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

In early 2010 Toyota had a problem with the Prius. After 10 years the UK public just didn’t seem to get the Hybrid technology it’s famous for.



A third didn’t know it was a dual-fuel car (i.e. petrol & electric) and outside of London the Prius was just too ‘out there’ to be considered by the average Mondeo driver.



Worse still, at the same time 8 million Toyotas were recalled to fix an ‘unintentional acceleration problem’, resulting in a UK Daily Mail front-page headline saying, “Don’t Drive Your Toyota”.



Something needed to be done to ‘normalise’ the Prius and restore the British public’s faith in Toyota cars.



The solution was Carpool, a new weekly Primetime TV show on Dave, which reinvented the celebrity chatshow and put it into the driving seat of a brand new Toyota Prius.



Creative Execution

Every week, our host gave a lift to some of the UK’s biggest stars and they had a chat on the way, free of stage lights and studio audiences.



Dave was ideal to broadcast Carpool. As a national channel watched by over half the UK’s adults in any month, Dave had the reach we needed to change perceptions beyond London, and with more motor programming than anyone else, the authority to be taken seriously.



As the UK’s Home of Witty Banter, it was the perfect place to launch an irreverent and fun chatshow to showcase the Prius in an everyday light.



Finally, by agreeing to a lift in a Toyota, many of Britain’s best loved entertainers gave repeated endorsement of the Prius at a time when it was needed most.



Online activation included extra content uploaded to iTunes, YouTube and Facebook, and promotion on blogs, Twitter, and paid search.



Results and Effectiveness

On TV Carpool reached over 4 million adults with another 150,000 online video plays.



Research showed that exposure to Carpool increased overall consideration for Toyota, leap-frogging from the 5th car brand people would next consider buying, to the top car brand people would next consider buying.



The UK now gets Hybrid and trust has been restored, with scores for Prius being safe, warm/friendly, honest, recommended and fun all up by at least 50%



Finally, Carpool got people talking. 44% of viewers said they’d talk about the Prius positively after watching.